


You know you have a permanent piece of my medium-sized American heart

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:50:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re not looking for Bucky anymore,” says Steve. He looks pale and exhausted, in a way that Sam has always come to associate with Bucky-related issues. “There’s no - there’s no point. He doesn’t want to be found.” </p><p>“Hey,” says Sam, sitting down next to Steve. They’re on a curbside, and Steve’s shield is flat on the ground beside him. “Hey, Cap. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t know how.” </p><p>“To be found?”</p><p>“To be Bucky.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You know you have a permanent piece of my medium-sized American heart

**Author's Note:**

> +Title from The National (pretty much as always)  
> +Huge thanks to **beardsley, haipollai** and **ittybittymanatee** for the support.

Sam notices the change around the time Steve stops checking his phone compulsively. Maybe that is the change. Steve stops folding and refolding the map on his lap while Sam drives. He trails his hand through the wind and he always wants to have the top down when it’s not raining. It seems like it never rains on Steve Rogers. 

Sometimes, Steve sleeps. 

Sometimes, he sings along to Rihanna. 

Sam’s kind of proud of that one. 

Sometimes, Steve’s fingertips trail along the inner seam of Sam’s jeans. 

That’s not the change (or, if it is, it’s a change that happened ten days into this trip, chasing windmills across America). 

.

“Where are we going?” asks Steve, his eyes still closed.

“I don’t know,” says Sam. “My navigator’s been asleep for the past fifty miles.”

Steve’s eyelashes flutter and his lips slide easily into a smile. “We’re going to see the world’s largest ball of twine, aren’t we?”

“It’d be a shame to come to Missouri and _not_ see it, is all I’m saying.” 

Steve huffs a laugh and Sam grins, more pleased than he should be.

.

They’re in Kansas and Sam feels like he’s seen nothing but haybales and green grass and, okay, the insides of his eyelids, for the better part of the last six hours. They stop at a diner near Independence because Sam is damned hilarious. 

“One down, fifteen to go,” he says, chewing on a waffle. 

“We’re not visiting all the towns called Independence, Sam.”

“Of course we’re not.” Sam swallows and takes a slug of bitter, black coffee. “Did you know that Freedom is only four and a half hours away?” 

“Sam.” Steve tries to look stern but it’s less than convincing when his hair is windswept and his cheeks are pink. “Let’s find a hotel.”

They drive to Wichita and Steve has stopped baulking at the price of hotel rooms. They stay in a Hilton that Sam booked from his phone. 

.

“We’re not looking for Bucky anymore,” says Steve. He looks pale and exhausted, in a way that Sam has always come to associate with Bucky-related issues. “There’s no - there’s no point. He doesn’t want to be found.” 

“Hey,” says Sam, sitting down next to Steve. They’re on a curbside, and Steve’s shield is flat on the ground beside him. “Hey, Cap. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t know how.” 

“To be found?”

“To be Bucky.” 

.

Sam isn’t sure that he always says the right thing. He isn’t sure that there’s a right thing to say. 

Sometimes, though, it’s right to pull in and unzip Steve’s jeans and slip his hand inside, until Steve’s turning the dry desert air blue and, when they pull out again, he’s murmuring that he can’t believe they just did that.

.

They’re cruising through Tennessee and Steve’s wearing a baseball cap. His hair has grown a little and it’s curling out underneath the hat. 

“Seriously, what is this music?” asks Sam. 

“It’s Tony’s,” says Steve. 

“Damn Dad rock.” 

.

The first time Steve goes down on Sam, it’s in New Orleans and it takes Sam by surprise. 

Steve follows Sam into the shower and Sam smacks his head back against the tiles so hard that he sees stars. 

“Shit,” says Steve and Sam manages to peel his eyes open and there’s blood mixing with the shower water. He reaches back to touch the crown of his head and his fingers come away red. 

“ _Shit_.”

Later, in the ER, when Sam’s been stitched up and the doctor’s been fed a story about Sam slipping in the shower, Steve nudges him with his shoulder.

“First time Bucky did that to me, I had an asthma attack.” His smile is rueful. “He wouldn’t touch me for months after.”

“Don’t worry,” says Sam. His vision’s a little obscured by the bandage wrapped around his head. “I’ll let you touch me, on one condition.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Maybe wait till we’re on or near a bed. Soft furnishings, man. That’s all I ask.”

.

“I think we’re being followed,” says Steve, one night. They’re in New Mexico, in a town levelled by Asgardians and physicists. 

“SHIELD or the good guys?” asks Sam. 

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He closes the motel room door behind him and steps into Sam’s waiting arms and they kiss.

.

Their first lead comes straight out of DC when they leave the graveyard and Sam’s wondering how many of the plots are empty. 

There’s been a break-in in Quantico and grainy footage of a man with a metal arm. The trail is cold when they get there and Steve, after a brief battle with his conscience and his loyalty, ultimately decides they should go to Manhattan. 

Stark Tower is everything Sam imagined, from the cream marble foyer to the sleek metal lines in Tony Stark’s penthouse. 

“I thought everything was digital, these days,” says Steve. 

Stark looks at him. “What does that mean?”

Steve gestures at the still image, hanging in mid air. “I thought you could, you know. Enhance.” 

“I’ll be sure to tell the goddamned individual pixels that, Cap.” 

Sam glances at Steve and sees, amidst the furrow-browed worry, a tiny spark of a mischievous smile. 

“Are you seriously winding Iron Man up right now?” he asks, softly murmuring into Steve’s ear. 

Steve’s smile grows. “Just don’t tell him that. He thinks I fear technology.” He speaks just ask quietly as Sam. “Just because I happen to carry a notebook about.” 

“Yeah,” says Sam. “I noticed that.” First day he spoke to Steve, he noticed because Captain America is apparently the sort of man who goes for an early morning sprint with a notebook in one pocket and a smartphone in the other. 

“Sometimes it’s okay to leave a mark,” says Steve. He pulls the notebook out of his back pocket and flicks it open and Sam can see what he’s written; lists, mostly, and some pencil sketches. “Even if it can be erased, you know?” 

.

 

“I never liked the freak shows at the funfair,” Steve says, when they decide not to visit Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in Branson. “It always seemed unkind, you know? And I get that most of that’s not real and some of it’s incredible but -” He shrugs. “It’s never sat well with me, that’s all.” 

Sam looks at him and they’re in an Irish pub, tucked into a corner booth, and he leans in and touches his lips to Steve’s. It’s dry and chaste, with a hint of Guinness.

Steve goes pink. “What was that for?” 

Sam grins. “Never change, Cap.”

Steve picks up a coaster and starts to tear it into strips, methodically. “I just. People are different, is all. That’s kind of the point, right? If we were all like, I don’t know, Nick?”

“We’d never trust anyone,” says Sam. He respects Nick Fury well enough but he doesn’t think he could live like that. 

.

They’ve been on the road for ten days, after Manhattan, and there’s only one room left in the motel, off a dusty highway in Nevada. 

“Sorry, boys,” says the old guy at the reception desk. “It’s high season.”

The parking lot is full of pick-ups and RVs and the blue glow of television sets can be seen in almost every window. There’s the crying of a child, muffled against the shoulder of her father when he picks her up from the gravelled ground. Everyone’s on the way somewhere. 

“We’ll take it,” says Steve. 

“Great choice. It’s the honeymoon suite so it’ll cost you but we’ll throw in a bottle of champagne.”

Champagne is stretching it. It’s a cheap bottle of sparkling wine that’s sweet enough to set Sam’s teeth on edge. There’s one bed in the so-called suite and Sam’s a little perturbed by the stains on the wall which either means that there’s been a badly-covered up murder here or one hell of a brutal wedding night. Steve’s eyes are bugging out slightly so Sam can only assume he’s thinking the same. 

“You okay to share a bed?” asks Steve. There’s literally no other horizontal surface in the room and the bathroom doesn’t have a bath so much as a slightly grubby shower stall.

“Absolutely,” says Sam and sometimes, he wonders at the way Steve looks at him. If Steve even knows the way he looks at him, when his head’s not filled with thoughts of Bucky. “So long as you’re prepared for the fact that I’m a pretty aggressive snuggler.”

Steve stares at him for a moment and then laughter erupts out of him. “So long as you’re prepared for the fact that I sleep shirtless.”

“My heart, Cap,” says Sam, clutching the front of his shirt. “Quit playing games with it.”

“I’d never,” says Steve, suddenly grave and standing so close. He ducks his head and presses his mouth to Sam’s and chases the taste of cheap sparkling wine from his mouth. 

“Is this okay?” he asks, his huge hands spread out on Sam’s back, which is damp with sweat because the air-conditioning in this honeymoon suite is not designed for heat or passion. 

“There is absolutely nothing about this that’s not okay,” says Sam. They sink onto the bed, which has a huge dip in the middle and they both giggle when they roll into it. They kiss and kiss and kiss until they fall asleep and Sam wakes up once in the night, his nose pressed against the skin at the base of Steve’s throat. 

.

“Shit, Wilson, what happened to you?” asks Sharon, sliding into the booth opposite them in a New Orleans diner. “Did the Soldier catch up to you guys?”

Sam touches the bandage around his head and doesn’t look at Steve. 

“Oh, shit,” says Sharon, her tone changing to something deeply amused. “As long as you’re safe, boys.”

.

The change comes in San Francisco. Steve sinks to his knees and Alcatraz is an actual smoking ruin and Sam’s not sure how to explain the immolation of a National Historic Landmark, even if it was the site of a secret HYDRA base. 

“He doesn’t want to be found,” says Steve, with more certainty than he has ever spoken the word. “He doesn’t want to be saved.” His voice cracks.

Sam drops his hand onto Steve’s shoulder. He stays on his feet. “Maybe he just wants to save himself.”

Steve nods heavily and he reaches up to cover Sam’s hand with his own. 

Sam wonders if Bucky’s nearby. If he can see them. He wonders if there’s a red dot on the back of his neck but he’s still alive so either Bucky knows, and approves, or he doesn’t care. 

.

They’re in Seattle and it’s misty and cool but that doesn’t stop Steve from stepping out onto their hotel room balcony in his shorts and closing his eyes. It doesn’t stop Sam from licking the broad expanse of Steve’s clammy skin when Steve comes back inside. 

“We’re gonna have to go to Vancouver,” says Sam, nuzzling at the crease of Steve’s thigh. “I know we’re not looking for him anymore but -”

“That’s fine,” says Steve, breathless and squirming. “I won’t actually burst into flames if I leave the United States.” 

Sam rests his cheek on Steve’s abdomen. “There’s definitely a joke here about how hot you are, Steve, and I refuse to sink to that level.” 

Steve glides his fingers over Sam’s hair. “Maybe just rise to the occasion instead?”

Sam can’t help it; he creases over with laughter and he’s still hiccuping when Steve nudges his cock towards Sam’s lips. Sam pulls off before Steve comes and Steve lets out a frustrated whine until Sam pushes him onto his front and licks a stripe down his spine. He parts Steve’s butt cheeks, biting one briefly, before lapping at Steve’s hole. He pushes his tongue inside and he can feel, more than hear, the way Steve’s whine takes on a whole new timbre. 

He doesn’t rush. He likes that he doesn’t have to rush. This isn’t frantic kissing in Nevada or inexpert blow jobs in Louisiana; this isn’t a fierce embrace in California or shy smiles in Kansas. 

He rolls on a condom and slathers on lube; he makes sure Steve is ready (Steve is past ready, to judge from the stream of near-incoherent invectives flowing from his bitten-red lips). He pushes in, slow and smooth and Steve is whimpering with gratitude. Sam fumbles to find Steve’s hand, clutching the pillow, and he twines their fingers together and sets a hard, punishing rhythm. 

Sam loves that Steve is loud. 

He loves that they will drive to Vancouver tomorrow and Steve will still feel this, super soldier or not, and Sam will know from the way Steve crosses his legs and bites his lip and turns his face to the sky, that he will love it, too.

.

There’s a chapel in Lebanon near the centre of the United States. 

“Kansas has so much going for it,” says Sam. “Why did Dorothy ever want to leave?”

Steve snorts and clicks his heels together. “Let’s go,” he says, having made his peace with whomever one makes such deals. 

.

The morning after, Sam’s certain things will be awkward. It’s not as though all roads haven’t lead to this; to Steve’s kiss-swollen mouth and the trail of hickeys down the side of Sam’s neck. This has been coming since the first time Steve lapped Sam in the predawn light in DC. This has been inevitable. 

Steve smiles at him though, and they get in the car to find the nearest diner that’ll give Steve the biggest stack of pancakes.

Sam’s used to Steve not being too talkative in the mornings. For a highly-enhanced human being, Steve still seems to need coffee to function. 

Steve’s foot nudges between Sam’s when he’s half-way through his second cup. 

“I think Natasha thinks I’m a bad kisser,” says Steve. 

Sam laughs aloud, in surprise as much as anything and he looks at the way Steve’s gaze settles on his mouth. 

“C’mere,” says Sam and he leans across the table. They kiss, one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi, four-Mississippi, five-Mississippi, and then Steve sits back. 

“No,” says Sam. “C’mere, gotta test this some more. For science, or something.” 

Steve’s smiling now and he takes out his map. 

“So, Area 51 isn’t real,” says Steve. “Despite what _Independence Day_ would have us believe.”

Sam stares at him. “Oh, god, you mean the movie? You’re talking about the movie? You saw the movie?”

Steve looks up at him briefly. “Sure,” he says. “I liked it. Anyway, I think there’s something classified here and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where Bucky’s headed.”

.

They’re in Atlanta, in a fancy restaurant, and they’re wearing suits that were delivered to their hotel room by Tony Stark, who’s now sitting opposite them. 

“So, honestly? It looks like your great road-trip of self-discovery was plotted by a blind four year-old with no sense of direction.” 

“We’re tracking Bucky,” says Steve. His voice is calm and steady but his fist on the table-top is clenched. Sam resists the urge to reach out and stroke and soothe Steve’s furled-up fingers. 

“That explains that, I guess,” says Tony. “Seems like your guy’s doing a swell job of taking down HYDRA single-handedly. Anyone would think he had a grudge.” He runs his hand through his hair. “But we’re just wondering, Cap. When are you coming back?”

“Whenever we find Bucky,” says Sam.

“Isn’t a bit weird to drag your new sidekick on your hunt for your old sidekick?” asks Tony.

“Partner,” says Steve. “Sam’s my partner.”

“In the, uh, Greek sense?” asks Tony. 

.

“Bucky was born here,” says Steve, when they cross the State line into Indiana. 

“Really?” asks Sam. “From the way you talk about him, he sounds so-”

“Worldly?”

“I guess,” says Sam. He wonders what they’ll do when they find Bucky. He wonders what will become of this. 

.

The drive to Vancouver is uneventful. Steve doesn’t get so much as a second glance at the border, even though his passport clearly states his date of birth. 

“We’re having poutine,” says Sam, when they park the car at the hotel. “Can we find some Canucks to mock?” 

There’s no sign of Bucky in Vancouver, even though the lead seemed solid; a news report of a guy with a metal arm and CCTV footage of him breaking stools over someone’s head in a bar brawl.

“I’m going to take a shower,” says Steve. 

“Okay,” says Sam, lying back on the bed and reaching for the remote. 

Steve huffs and, a few seconds later, Sam hears the sound of water running. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” says Steve, again, only now he’s naked. 

“Oh,” says Sam. “Gotcha.” He scrambles to his feet and he’s kind of proud of how quickly he can shed his clothes, but part of that is down to the experience of being dowsed with some unidentified chemical in the field. 

Steve pulls him in under the spray and they start to kiss, open-mouthed and gasping, and then Steve’s sucking Sam’s tongue into his mouth. They start to rut against each other, kisses fracturing into loud moans, and Steve turns Sam around to face the tiles, his dick sliding between Sam’s butt cheeks. Steve comes against the small of Sam’s back and he bites down on Sam’s shoulder. Sam comes hard, spattering the tiles, and it’s just as well that Steve is strong enough to hold them both up.

They stumble out into the bedroom, after, wrapped in one towel because Steve gets handsy. 

They stumble out and come to a sudden stop.

“Don’t stop on my account.” 

Bucky Barnes is sitting on the bed, leaning back, legs spread wide. He looks amused. Thank fuck, he looks amused. 

“We - came for you,” says Steve. 

Bucky’s lips are pursed. “Sure didn’t sound like that, Steve-o.” 

“I’m going to get dressed,” says Sam.

.

In the two weeks since Nevada, and a fruitless search for secret HYDRA bases, they’ve started staying in nicer hotels, with bigger beds. 

“I think we should date,” says Steve, decisively, over cheeseburgers and milkshakes. 

“We’re already on a road trip together, man,” says Sam. “Think that counts as going steady in some cultures.” 

Steve snorts and wraps his lips around his straw and Sam’s brain shorts out. “It’s just. Natasha keeps trying to set me up with -”

“Nice girls?”

“And not-so-nice girls,” says Steve. “And that’s fine but -”

“Not what you’re looking for right now.”

Steve nods and, even though he’s looking for Bucky right now, he’s looking straight at Sam.

.

“We should go to Napa Valley,” says Steve. “For a break.”

They haven’t actively pursued any leads in about four days but neither of them have acknowledged it. 

“You takin’ me on a wine holiday, Cap?”

“Don’t worry,” says Steve. “I won’t take advantage.” 

“Do you even like wine?” Sam can’t help but wonder if Steve’s just been Googling ‘romantic holidays in California’. “Let’s go to Yosemite, instead,” he says. “You can wrestle bears and I’ll swoon, all manly-like, into your arms.” 

.

Steve hates Las Vegas. Sam wonders if it’s because of the extravagance and waste and a guy doesn’t have to have experienced the Great Depression to get behind that. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asks Natasha. She’s lounging beside the pool at their hotel, wearing overlarge sunglasses and a floppy sunhat. “That you don’t like girls?”

“I do like girls,” says Steve. “Uh. Women. I mean-”

“It’s cool,” says Natasha. “You like Sam better. I get it.” 

She passes Steve an airport paperback. “Louisiana,” she says. “Though move fast. The evidence has a tendency to vanish in those marshes, you know?” 

.

Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes is one of Sam’s personal heroes and not just because he puts up with Tony Stark on the regular. 

“I’ve an Air Force Colonel who’s pretty pissed that her bird was punched out by a guy with a metal arm so we’d appreciate if he could be apprehended, sooner rather than later.”

“Yes, sir,” says Sam, managing not to snap a salute.

Steve takes the file and nods. “Thanks, Rhodey,” he says. “Tell Carol I’m sorry.” 

“Tell her yourself,” says Rhodes, though he is, at least, smiling. “Oh, and Tony asked me to give you this.” 

He hands Steve an MP3 player. “To further your musical education.”

“Wait,” says Sam. “Did Iron Man just make Captain America a mixtape?”

.

“Where are we gonna go?” asks Sam. They have no reason to keep traveling. 

“I hear Toronto’s nice this time of year,” says Steve, settling into the passenger seat. 

“You mean sweaty as balls humidity and thunderstorms every other day?” Sam is dubious, to say the least, but he pulls out onto Granville. 

“Alaska?” asks Steve. 

“Maybe,” says Sam. 

“Are we there yet?” asks Bucky from the back seat.

Sam genuinely has no idea how this is going to work but Steve leans over and kisses his cheek, just next to his mouth. 

“I’ve never been to Winnipeg,” says Steve.

“Okay, now I know you’re fucking with me.” 

Steve puts his sunglasses on and rests his hand lightly on Sam’s thigh and it really doesn’t matter a damn what direction they take.


End file.
